Department of Physics, University of Notre Dame, Nieuwland Science Hall, Notre Dame 46556, USA.
J Theor Biol. 2018 Oct 7;454:231-239. doi: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2018.06.012. Epub 2018 Jun 13.
Much research has focused on the deleterious effects of free-riding in public goods games, and a variety of mechanisms that suppress cheating behavior. Here we argue that under certain conditions cheating can be beneficial to the population. In a public goods game, cheaters do not pay for the cost of the public goods, yet they receive the benefit. Although this free-riding harms the entire population in the long run, the success of cheaters may aid the population when there is a common enemy that antagonizes both cooperators and cheaters. Here we study models of the interactions between tumor cells, which play a public goods game, and the immune system. We investigate three population dynamics models of cancer growth combined with a model of effector cell dynamics. We show that under a public good with a limiting benefit, the presence of cheaters aids the tumor in overcoming immune system suppression, and explore the parameter space wherein it occurs. The mechanism of this phenomenon is that a polymorphism of cheaters and altruists optimizes the average growth rate of the tumor, which is what determines whether or not the immune response is overcome. Our results give support for a possible synergy between cooperators and cheaters in ecological public goods games.
许多研究都集中在公共物品博弈中的搭便车行为的有害影响，以及各种抑制作弊行为的机制上。在这里，我们认为在某些条件下，作弊对种群可能是有益的。在公共物品博弈中，作弊者不为公共物品的成本买单，但却能得到收益。尽管这种搭便车行为从长远来看会损害整个种群，但当存在一个共同的敌人同时对抗合作者和作弊者时，作弊者的成功可能会对种群有利。在这里，我们研究了肿瘤细胞之间相互作用的模型，这些细胞参与了公共物品博弈，以及免疫系统。我们研究了三种结合效应细胞动力学模型的癌症生长的群体动力学模型。我们表明，在具有限制收益的公共物品中，作弊者的存在有助于肿瘤克服免疫系统的抑制，并探索了发生这种情况的参数空间。这种现象的机制是，作弊者和利他主义者的多态性优化了肿瘤的平均增长率，这决定了免疫反应是否被克服。我们的结果为生态公共物品博弈中合作者和作弊者之间可能存在协同作用提供了支持。
